Materials List: Engineering Your Own Spectrograph

Each group needs:

  • 1 rectangular piece of thick foam core, 25.5 x 76 cm (10 x 30-inch) and 5 mm (3/16 inch) thick
  • 2 Styrofoam cups
  • 1 holographic diffraction grating (1,000 lines per mm or 25,400 grooves per inch)
  • 1 ruler
  • 1 meter stick
  • 1 protractor
  • 1 X-ACTO knife
  • 1 black fine point permanent marker
  • 1 incandescent flashlight with focusing beam (mini mag-lights are best; LED flashlights do not work)
  • Engineering Your Own Spectrograph Worksheet

To share with the entire class:

  • 1 roll of masking tape
  • Red, green and violet markers
  • Sheets of paper, from legal- to poster-sized, for calculations and sketching

Material note: Purchase holographic diffraction gratings in sheets or on card-mounted slides; prices from Rainbow Symphony Store (2007)

http://www.rainbowsymphony.com/:

  • A set of 10 12-inch x 6-inch linear sheets with 1,000 lines per mm for $25
  • A set of 50 2-inch x 2-inch linear calibrated card-mounted slides with 1,000 lines per mm for $20
  • A set of 100 2-inch x 2-inch linear calibrated card-mounted slides with 500 lines per mm for $35
https://www.teachengineering.org/activities/view/cub_spect_activity7